A Place to Stand

Comments from Scotland on politics, technology & all related matters (ie everything)/"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."Henry Louis Mencken....WARNING - THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS HAVE DECIDED THAT THIS BLOG IS LIKELY TO BE MISTAKEN FOR AN OFFICIAL PARTY SITE (no really, unanimous decision) I PROMISE IT ISN'T SO ENTER FREELY & OF YOUR OWN WILL

It is possible authors may be biased. Both the leaders, the US & China are almost 50% self citations & in China's case the average number of citations per document is far lower. Most of the rest ruin at about 25%

Taking away the number of self citations from the total, in thousands, and dividing by the population gives us:

Scotland 2,979 573.8
[Scottish figures are not available from the main chart here but they are compared with UK ones here. We have 16% of the UK total.. We have 8.3% of the population. Thus our figures should be 191% of the UK's]

This basically shows an enhancement of the differences between the original listing. The countries are still listed by original results not this refinement.

Britain now places second in the world in total citations - China's total having collapsed - at 1/3rd of the US total, with 1/6th of the population.

However those small countries which had a high per capita ratio of good science have an even higher one when it comes to citations, by other people, of their papers. Those who do a lot of important, heavily cited, scientific papers are doing an even higher proportion of the most important and most heavily cited ones.

Britain comes behind Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland again. We also come behind Denmark and Israel now. Israel having had a surprisingly low score, considering its obvious technological achievements, I still think Switzerland's role is inflated by its role in the invention of new medicines which require an inordinate amount of material to be made public.

Scotland, which on the previous measure was ahead of even Switzerland, now places behind them but still ahead of everybody else in the world.

If that is not something worthy of an awful lot more legitimate national pride (in both nations) than any Olympics showing I don't know what would be. I don't even know what would be a greater sign of the inherent good we could do in the race of human progress, any time those in charge were willing to allow it.

"I would like, for once, to correct your Lordship on the final line of your main text. That we are in need of rising in the "intellectual, scientific and economic" ratings.

Intellectual is as intellectual does and I have long said that we could be out of recession and into the fastest growth in the world any time our governing class allow it.

However on the scientific front Britain is the world leader.

This list, by country, of citations of scientific paper (an infinitely better way of measuring success than merely counting noses of "scientists") shows Britain in the 3rd place in the world, after the US & China, at at least 1/4 of the US rate. This puts us ahead per capita. Even as you go down the lists we (UK) seem to be ahead, of everybody but Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands & only Switzerland, with its extensive medicines industry, by a significant amount.

That is a very proud boast for us to be able to make. In my opinion a much prouder & more important one than being able to place 3 in golds & 4th in medals in sports, when we are the home team.
It says much about the triviality of our political and media classes that this fact is not shouted from the rooftops by them.

It may also be of interest that nearly half the American citations are "self citations" while just under 1/4 of ours are.

It is of interest to me, as a Scot that Scotland, in turn, still outperforms the UK, per capita.

Scientific progress is becoming faster and even more important to economic progress than ever before. The conclusion about what we could be achieving if not being held back by our Luddite political establishment is obvious.

In this regard UKIP's recent endorsement of taking the £275m we waste on the "European Space Agency" (which with half NASA's budget achieves even more bureaucracy) to fund a competitive Space X-Prize Fund. This mechanism is proven to be a 33-100 times more effective funding mechanism. Shows who the only truly progressive party in Britain is.
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Alex Salmond, the First Minister, said the report illustrated the "great opportunities that exist for Scottish businesses to collaborate with our research community to exchange knowledge and design the products of the future. The commercialisation of knowledge is a key to unlock Scotland's economic potential".

Yes you useless, preening, self satisfied, corrupt, representative of Scotland's parasitic political class, it certainly is. And it is Luddites like you who deliberately stop people infinitely more constructive than you, from unlocking it.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The £24 billion, which appears to be the true all in cost*, could according to experts**, if applied to space X-Prizes, have provided Britian with a commercial space shuttle, permanent orbital industries and a permanent Moon settlement. I think this would provide more international respect for Britian than placing 3rd in gold medals (4th in the total of medals which means most of the world thinks Russia came third). Also an almost infinitely greater economic “legacy”.
Fortunately using the money we waste on ESA for such prizes is now UKIP policy though that is only £275 million – still enough to get the shuttles in 2-3 years.

The Treasurer of the United States is directed to pay to the first American owned company (if corporate at least 60% of the shares must be held by American citizens) the following sums for the following accomplishments. No monies shall be paid until the goals specified are accomplished and certified by suitable experts from the National Science Foundation or the National Academy of Science:

1. The sum of $2 billion to be paid for construction of 3 operational spacecraft which have achieved low earth orbit, returned to earth, and flown to orbit again three times in a period of three weeks.

2. The sum of $5 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a space station which has been continuously in orbit with at least 5 Americans aboard for a period of not less than three years and one day. The crew need not be the same persons for the entire time, but at no time shall the station be unoccupied.

3. The sum of $12 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a Lunar base in which no fewer than 31 Americans have continuously resided for a period of not less than four years and one day.

4. The sum of $10 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a solar power satellite system which delivers at least 800 megawatts of electric power to a receiving station or stations in the United States for a period of at least two years and one day.

But I am sure he would have applied the same reasoning to alleged catastrophic global warming. In both cases supporters claim it to be a science but in both cases they are unable to point to any clear evidence for the theory. Here is an article claiming astrology has an evidential basis and you will see it relies on the same sort of anecdotal tales, claims without evidence and post hoc redefinition of what is meant that the climate alarmists do.

Both are pseudosciences as defined by Popper. That they produce no predictions that can be falsified (IE tested to find if they are false) or sometimes, as with Hansens's 1988 claim that we were going to see a temperature rise of 0.5 C worldwide, get ignored when the prediction is found false - which doesn't prevent new prediction of the sort the customer wants. In astrology usually a prediction of love, happiness and wealth since the customer is a person and in "climate science" a prediction of disaster requiring more state power to provide protection, because the cuntomer is government.
Other remarks by him which I think support the conclusion that he would have agreed that believers current catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is happening are, by definition, not intellectuals (ditto promoters of the fraud who may not be believers, who may be smarter but have no respect for intellect): Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters.

.Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire- What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
-One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority
-Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.
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When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Hunterston is Scotland's deep water port. The only other place in Scotland, or indeed the UK with similar possibilities is Scapa Flo. Certainly it has the capacity, precisely because it is deep water, to exceed Antwerp/Amsterdam if given the chance.

The problem is that if you want to have a world class port you have to not only be able to unload the biggest ships you also want to be able to transport the stuff. Now Hunterston, the blue dot on the coast below opposite the small island of Cumrae, does have passable rail connections, hence it is possible to move the coal landed, but the road connection is dreadful. Since at least 70% of goods movement is by road the lack of a road is clearly the problem. I suggest a new road of about 5 miles due east from Hunterston connecting to the 737 just north of Dalry and then a widening and dualing of the of the 737 until it reaches the Glasgow motorway near serendipitously beside Glasgow airport. Currently the Scottish government ensure that almost all "investment" in transport goes to rail, where it has a minor effect, or the Forth bridge which is an unnecessary £2,600 million white elephant of use only to whoever gets the extra £2,280 million (the previous bridge cost £320 m in today's money). Do that, then make the area an enterprize zone. Making the terminal area a bonded excise free area would allow Hunterston to develop as a transshipment point for all of the EU. Part of the Enterprize Zone structure would be building planning rules that allowed new building and allowed it to be of modular construction like the new Chinese Skycity One. Being really adventurous we could add the French idea that areas which allow the building of nuclear plants get their electricity at cost - Hunterston nuclear power station is popular here, it provides jobs in a region short of them so this would both assist in the growth of a new city here and make it politically easier to build it and keep the lights on across Scotland. This is a picture of the current A737 and by comparison of a French A71 road I ran across Building transport infrastructure is one of the very few activities government can do that is overwhelmingly agreed can improve the economy (when it is done competently).

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Romney has chosen Paul Ryan as his running mate.Thus we have a very serious, economically competent team which says a lot about how Romney intends to rule.

Romney himself is a man who became a billionaire through taking over failing companies and either setting them up as success or asset stripping, or both. This is capitalism at its toughest but also its best. The ultimate difference between free and government control is that when a free enterprise institution fails to make a profit it goes bust and is dealt with as Romney did, whereas when a government department fails to achieve its targets it calls for and gets a bigger budget to try again.

Ryan's many claim to fame is running the Senate Budget committee, which he has done in a way that shows he is strongly committed to fiscal sanity. He opposes the catastrophic warming fraud and even opposes allowing the government EPA to ban fire. He has an "all of the above attitude to energy - supporting more shale gas extraction, oil drilling and nuclear power. On space development he has never said anything of interest, which is not inherently a bad place to start.

Like Romney he appears to be so squeaky clean it hurts.

Since most of Obama's previous campaigns have been based on leaking sealed court reports on his opponents divorces and Obama is clearly unable to run on a record of any sort of success it is probably important to be bulletproof to smears. Obama having nothing else to offer.

All of that looks like and intelligent campaign, on the issues, at least on the Republican side. There is a very clear divide between the parties on issues - free market V government control of everything; fiscal prudence V endless stimuli; honesty V catastrophic warming scares; small government V big government; growing energy production in the free market V declining in a controlled one.

So far media coverage here has been muted since they don't know how to report what he actually stands for since it is so outwith allowed discussion in out media. |These are the sort of policies that will get the US out of recession very quickly & which are also endorsed by UKIP - which causes problems far a British establishment which censor any attempt to discuss them.

On space development it looks like we are going to have to rely on Newt Gingrich cutting a deal whereby NASA's budget is to a large extent put into an X-Prize fund. That should not be difficult. Newt made a decent run for the nomination and giving him leadership of NASA would get him both enthusiastically supportive and out of the way. Newt has never asked for more money than NASA gets - just that it be used for prizes - and this suits the free market philosophy of both Romney and Ryan

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As an example of the censorship of any debate in Britain on what are going to be the main issues in the US election see this BBC report of the Bank of England chief wittering about his "deep sympathy" for the people of Britain whom he helped has put into recession and his inability to suggest any way out.

"Unfortunately there is no easy remedy" he says knowing this to be a lie. He knows we could be out of recession in days if he and the other corrupt parasites wanted it.

2 clear signs that what we are experiencing is not a true recession but that in fact we are in the boom phase of an economy that is in underlying technological decline.

1 - Employment is rising not falling while per capita productivity is falling. This just does not happen in a true recession - then employers shake out all the labour they can. This is consistent only with labour becoming a larger component of production as technological inputs, primarily electricity, become less. Less of it being produced and more expensively. Technologically we are in steep decline, purely because government prevents it. In the meantime print and spend (quantitative easing) is being used to produce a bigger bubble, but not a bubble growing quite as fast as the technological decline.

2 - Though all the state media keep pushing the line that much of the recession is due to the Euro problem because we do 40% of our trade with them. But if this were a factor we would be getting a far larger push from the fact that the rest of the world, providing 60% is growing far faster than the EU is declining (6%). This is proven by the fact that our trade balance with the EU is getting marginally better while with the rest of the world it is getting worse. That can only mean that we are being marginally less restricted by Luddism than the \EU average but that the rest of the world is becoming more competitive because it isn't in the hands of the ecofascists.